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QuickCare disrupts sector agencies by empowering childcare providers
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Freya Lucas
Nov 05, 2024
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The recent extension of three key workforce transitional arrangements in the Education and Care Services National Regulations has highlighted something many early childhood education and care (ECEC) providers are acutely aware of - managing staffing in the sector is not as simple as it once was.
Astute ECEC providers are increasingly turning to external providers in a bid to manage ever growing leader workloads in a recruitment space which is highly competitive, and in so doing, many are coming to realise the value of having a trusted subject matter expert (or teams of experts!) on board.Rami Nassif, COO of Montessori Academy, is one of the providers who has recently made the shift to using QuickCare, a tech solution and talent marketing service that pairs great quality educators with ECEC providers.
For Mr Nassif, the benefits of the move have extended beyond simply providing a reduction in wages as a percentage of revenue as a result of a reduction in agency staffing spend through the utilisation of the existing casual educator pool.
Rather, for the Montessori Academy team, one of the biggest benefits of harnessing the QuickCare solution has been providing a more engaging and enriching experience for educators and leaders alike by adopting the QuickCare platform.
Centre managers across the network have reported feeling far less stressed about filling shifts and meeting ratio since having visibility of all available casuals and the ability to post and monitor shift fills in real time.
An outdated system which was compounding stress
Previously, Montessori Academy’s HR Manager Shelly Li explained, centre managers had a number of processes they used to fill shifts, often working under time pressure and juggling multiple demands for their attention whilst also emailing, sending text messages, or making phone calls to try and fill shifts, a process which was typically documented in a live Excel spreadsheet.
Not only was this process arduous for those involved, it was also highly manual, and often resulted in the provider needing to access agency staffing after being unable to fill shifts from its existing talent pool, something which was having a strong financial impact.
“Being in the ECEC sector, we do have a much stronger emphasis on coordinating staffing arrangements and managing casual staffing needs compared to many other sector and industry HR functions,“ Ms Li explained.
Managers were finding that casual staff coordination was an administrative burden, one which fell during a time when recruiting permanent staff members was becoming more of a challenge, which was in turn driving up the need to access casual staff.
“We knew something had to change. Employee engagement is always top of our minds and the former process was not a very engaging way to communicate with our staff members.”
Seeking an innovative solution
In evaluating the large number of staffing solutions on offer, Montessori Academy selected QuickCare, an app with a simple user interface for centre managers and educators to engage directly on the platform, drawn by the ‘quality first’ approach which drives staffing sourcing and selection for QuickCare.
Developed by a team of ECEC and tech sector experts, supported by experienced recruitment professionals, the QuickCare solution has one simple mission - to help centres better manage their educator talent while boosting overall quality of care in the ECEC sector.
Educators known to the service are loaded into the platform, and centre managers then post available shifts. If the shifts posted cannot be filled by the existing casual pool of known educators, QuickCare’s own quality casual educator pool can step in and take publicly posted shifts.
Providers have the peace of mind which comes from being able to highlight key policies which visiting educators must be aware of, and of sharing any aspects which are especially worthy of attention, such as the importance of active supervision.
It’s this unique combination of utilising trusted staff known to services, coupled with having an on-call pool of high calibre educators waiting in the wings, all accessed through a simple to use, easy to understand tech solution which sets QuickCare apart from other offerings in the recruitment space.
As a bonus, since utilising QuickCare, Montessori Academy’s overall retention rate of casual staff has significantly improved.
“Many providers overlook casuals as they come and go but by utilising QuickCare we’ve been able to see which of our educators is highly rated and hasn’t taken a shift, we can then offer them shifts to ensure they’re working and happy,” Ms Li said.
Unapologetically high standards
Casual staff are recruited by QuickCare through a robust recruitment methodology which assesses communication skills, qualifications, experience, attitudes and behaviours, progressing only those candidates which advance their mission of “raising the standard of care for children.”
“We reject more educator applications than we accept, and we make no apologies for that,” Chris Omeissah, CEO QuickCare said.
“When we came into this space we wanted to offer something different to those passionate centre leaders and providers who are so dedicated to the children and families they educate and care for, and the selection of staff is the number one way we can do that.”
“That mission of raising the standard of care for children guides our every decision and means you reap the benefits with outcomes like savings, better quality educators and a recruitment guarantee unmatched in the market.”
Looking to the future, QuickCare’s team of tech experts are exploring ways to support their customers to achieve additional cost efficiencies, particularly as the Worker Retention Payment becomes better understood.
“Utilising the analytics capability will help more workforce challenges such as being able to predict workforce requirements in different geographies and putting in place solutions to the workforce distribution challenges faced by the whole sector,” Mr Omeissah said.
Would you like to learn more about how QuickCare’s solutions can benefit your service? Visit www.quickcarehr.com or email sales@quickcarehr.com
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